True Food - Vitamin Supplements or Food?

Last week some of the staff in Organico were fortunate to attend a lecture training by Dr Smallbone, the man behind a range of vitamins called 'True Food' made by a company called Higher Nature. This was a real honour as we often get to talk to 'Representatives' or 'Trainers' but not often to the person who develops the products from start to finish! Being able to question Dr Smallbone further over lunch in Cafe Paradiso was pretty nice too...

We have recommended True Food supplements for years now, having been convinced a long time ago that the idea behind them makes a lot of sense. That idea is basically that rather than swallowing lots of sythetic vitamin pills, which are hard to absorb and can even sometimes put pressure on our systems, what we should be taking is vitamins in a 'food' state. In a nutshell that means vitamins and minerals that have been complexed or bonded with the relevant lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins to closely resemble the way those nutrients are found in our food. This means we need to take far smaller doses of vitamins or minerals, because the body sees these substances as foods rather than as chemical isolates and is able to absord a far greater proportion of them.

What Higher Nature have developed is a highly sophisticated procedure whereby vitamin and minerals are fed to live yeasts, and the mixture (smelly I should imagine!) is allowed to ferment, so that the yeast absorbs all the nutrients into itself, 'digests' them as it were. the yeast cells are then killed off, leaving a highly absorbable food supplement that is as close to nature as possible. In adition to this process, they also add in concentrated foodstuffs to the tablets - for example organic carrot puree is added to the Beta Carotene tablet.

According so some research carried out using true Food products, the various vitamins and minerals are between 2 and 12 times more potent that the equivalent synthetic nutrient. As I said above, this means smaller doses are needed, which is very beneficial when you think of, for example, citamin C. If for theraputic reasons, very high doses of what is normally called vitamin C (the chemical Ascorbic Acid) are needed, it causes in most people a severe laxitive effect. Taking True Food C you can reach the same level of vitamin C in you blood without that effect.

There are still some cases in which we may need conventional, synthetic vitamin supplements. But for many of us, who want to take a multivitamin because we suffer from a few too many minor ailments or who are lacking in energy, a True Food supplement makes a lot more sense.

For advice on which supplements are appropriate in your case please call in to Organico and talk to our now even-better informed staff!